Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The sea surface microlayer (SML) at the air-sea interface is a distinct, under-studied habitat compared to the subsurface and copepods, important components of ocean food webs, have developed key adaptations to exploit this niche. [40] The ocean-spanning SML forms the boundary between the atmosphere and the hydrosphere.
The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of the ocean is very deep, where the seabed is known as the abyssal plain. Seafloor spreading creates ...
The ocean floor is not all flat but has submarine ridges and deep ocean trenches known as the hadal zone. [6] For comparison, the pelagic zone is the descriptive term for the ecological region above the benthos, including the water column up to the surface. At the other end of the spectrum, benthos of the deep ocean includes the bottom levels ...
The pelagic zone contrasts with the benthic and demersal zones at the bottom of the sea. The benthic zone is the ecological region at the very bottom, including the sediment surface and some subsurface layers. Marine organisms such as clams and crabs living in this zone are called benthos. Just above the benthic zone is the demersal zone.
Marine botany is the study of flowering vascular plant species and marine algae that live in shallow seawater of the open ocean and the littoral zone, along shorelines of the intertidal zone, coastal wetlands, and low-salinity brackish water of estuaries. It is a branch of marine biology and botany.
They are the only flowering plants that live in the ocean. Seagrasses are flowering plants (angiosperms) which grow in marine environments. They evolved from terrestrial plants which migrated back into the ocean about 75 to 100 million years ago. [1] [2] In the present day they occupy the sea bottom in shallow and sheltered coastal waters ...
They keep coastal waters healthy by absorbing bacteria and nutrients, and slow the speed of climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide into the sediment of the ocean floor. Seagrasses evolved from marine algae which colonized land and became land plants, and then returned to the ocean about 100 million years ago.
Dead organisms sink to the bottom of the ocean, depositing layers of shell which over time cement to form limestone. This is the origin of both marine and terrestrial limestone. [57] Calcium precipitates into calcium carbonate according to the following equation: Ca 2+ + 2HCO 3 − → CO 2 + H 2 O + CaCO 3 [112]